Boom Burger

I came here tonight to hear the crowd go...

Notting Hill - 10 July 2014

In case you haven't noticed, I ruddy love burgers. I am also a massive fan of jerk chicken and Caribbean food in general. And tucked away under the Westway off Portobello Road, these collide to great effect.

It's a ramshackle restaurant that's definitely more Notting Hill carnival than Notting Hill the movie. Which I quite like - it's got a lively, friendly neighbourhood vibe, with a few tables spilling out onto the pavement.

Resisting the urge for a Jerk Boom (I feel that kind of thing is best left in the privacy of your own home), we go for the signature bacon jam & cheese Boom Burger with fries and a side of sticky jerk wings.

On arrival the burger itself looks a bit anaemic with very little char on the outside of the patty, but there is a huge dollop of bacon jam falling out of the side and the patty is smothered in well melted american cheese, so it's still an appealing looking meal. Biting in reveals a perfectly pink patty, coarse grind, not too dense, with burgery juice spilling out. The jam is the most bacon-heavy I've ever had, which demands commendation even if it lacks a bit of the sweetness that makes Burger Bear's so amazing. And I like the addition of a little jerk seasoning through the mayonnaise to provide the requisite Caribbean twist, although I would say it could handle more heat, or on reflection I should have asked if they had hot sauce. Some Encona HPS would have made it. But nit-picking aside, this is a well-made burger that delivers on taste and texture.

The wings are a special, being either extra spicy or extra sticky depending on which of the serving kids you asked. I'm going with the latter, because they're certainly very sticky and not super spicy. The jerk flavouring is strong here (as you might hope from jerk wings), and the fresh chillies add freshness and a little heat. However they are very wee, more like beefed up budgies - the same size as half a lime (see photo). If they'd been bigger, then we're talking winning wings. As it is, yeah they're tasty, but nothing to write home about. Sounds a bit churlish, but it's true.

They can cook a fry, which is always good, but that's all there is to say about it. Disappointingly, we'd heard good tings about their signature plantain fries, only to be discover they were sold out upon our visit. So no news there.

Overall, this a cool little place that is doing an interesting twist on the standard burger imprint and doing it well. So if you're in the area, it's worth checking out.

Boom Burger
272 Portobello Road
London
W10 5TZ
http://www.boomburger.co.uk/

Lima Floral

Deepest Peru

Covent Garden - 21 July 2014

Nine years ago, I spent a few weeks in Peru while backpacking around Latin America, and I left with the impression that the food was pretty unexciting. Yet it is Peruvian cuisine that is the latest London food-trend with restaurants popping up left, right and centre. And given the reviews and awards these places have been receiving, it seems I must have been too hasty in my judgement. Maybe travelling on a shoestring doesn't always allow you to experience the best of a country’s cuisine (mainly meat and potatoes, with a one-time-only meal of spatch-cocked and deep-fried guinea pig served on a bed of chips). Who knew?

One of the restaurants at the vanguard of this Andean invasion is the Michelin-starred Lima Fitzrovia. And clearly business is good, as they've just expanded; opening a branch near Covent Garden and one of the best parts of new openings are those the magical words ‘soft launch’. One of the things I love about a half-off launch is the equalising element of it – it allows you the opportunity to experience places that would otherwise be saved for a special occasion on a regular Monday night instead, whilst leaving enough change in your wallet for something other than gruel for the rest of the week… And in this case let me reappraise Peruvian cuisine. It turns out it is good.

First up, the restaurant itself is a lovely space set in an attractive building at the end of Floral Street (hence the Lima Floral moniker), which once housed a workshop for a stained-glass window manufacturer. The large floor-to-ceiling gothic windows lend the dining room (there’s a basement tapas bar too) a light airy feel. The service was of a good standard – our waitress was friendly and knowledgeable about the food.

And that food is tasty. The menu is packed with exotic and unknown ingredients. Our stand-out starter was Sea Bream ceviche, with Tiger’s Milk. Which as it turns out, doesn't involve a brave kitchen-hand risking life and limb to source (even though cats do have nipples and therefore can be milked). It is the name given to the citrus juice, made cloudy by curing the fish. This dish was wonderful – light and fresh, with smooth avocado cream and the tiger’s milk giving it a sharp bite.

The best main was a similar dish – monkfish in green & red Tiger's Milk. Meaty fish hidden under ribbons of crunchy courgettes, and a smattering of micro herbs – amongst a warm yellow sauce (the yellow chill pepper I assume) although we were unsure what made it green and red tiger milk?

The sharpness of these dishes did slightly overshadow our other orders – a marinated raw beef escabeche salad for starters, and lamb rump with eco dry potato and other pureed stuff for mains. Both of which were very pretty to look at, and cooked well enough (actually, cooked medium rare), but just a bit bland and washed out next to the fish dishes. Plus, there was chewy sinew running through the lamb, that even the knife struggled to cut through let alone our molars.

The desserts saw a return to form, that would stand up to a full-on assault from a whole streak (or, ambush, collective noun fans) of tigers.

The photos don’t do the chocolate dessert justice. The Peruvian Palo Blanco Cacao was smoother than silk and richer than El Dorado, with the oat and wood sorrel topping adding tang and texture – this is next level chocolate pudding.

The Café Peruano also deserves credit, not least for adding purple potato to the list of dessert ingredients. Freeze dried and powdered, it added an unusual, and not unpleasant feel to the sweetness of the coffee ice cream. The red kiwicha added crunch and an exotic element, but little in terms of taste. Overall, not as delicious as the chocolate, but worth trying.

One word of warning: the cherimoya is an acquired taste at best. I would have thought that something variously described as ‘custard apple’ or ‘ice cream fruit’ should be the most delicious thing ever – and in fact Mark Twain described it as such. However, it turns out, Mark Twain was mental. A neighbouring table ordered the Cherimoya Mousse dessert, and promptly stopped after just one mouthful. They offered us a taste, and one spoonful later, we were in complete agreement. It tasted like gone-off milk. I’d rather try guinea pig again.

But that aside, I would visit Lima Floral again. It was a lovely meal, and it’s completely sold me on Peruvian food. Next time  I want to check out the bar downstairs and it’s piqueos menu. The ceviches are on there, so I can get more tiger’s milk coursing through my body. Winning.

Lima Floral

14 Garrick St.

WC2E 9BJ

http://www.limafloral.com

National Burger Day

Oh Happy Day!

Battersea Power Station - 27 August 2014

Record shops. Hugging.  Libraries. Talking like a pirate. Bacon. Gin. Pancakes. Dogs. Every thing has its day. And thanks to the good people of Mr Hyde, burgers have finally been elevated into such illustrious company, with a day of their own. A celebration of all things ground beef and bunned, National Burger Day sees restaurants all over the country offering a 20% discount on burgers (natch). And most importantly for the purposes of this post, it sees Mr Hyde teaming up with Tweat Up to throw a patty party.

This year it took place at the Street Feast's Riverside Feast site right in the shadow of the iconic Battersea Power Station. This has been my favourite Street Feast location yet, and it’s been an awesome summer of street foods down there. It'll be missed, with the power station about to become another beacon to over-priced London property. Impressively shiny, no doubt. But I doubt it'll have a fraction of the vibes.

Anyway, back to the burgers: 12 of London's finest were in attendance, cooking up one-off specials. Most of these being smaller than your average burger, as with all the best will in the world you'd never to be able to try more than a couple...

We managed 5, of which the first was the stand out – Slider Bar’s short rib slider: an aged beef patty (anything else just won’t cut it these days), 10-hour roast chipotle short rib, bone marrow & habanero salsa, American cheese and chipotle ketchup. The patty was excellently cooked, the short rib was rich and tender, and the whole thing had a real chilli kick to it, with the gf feeling the burn. I didn't think it was that spicy, but would happily have gone back for a second if there wasn't so much more to try.

Second was Club Gascon's foie gras burger. I would struggle to call it a burger, however – it was a slab of fried foie gras on truffle cream and crispy gem lettuce, in a brioche roll. A sweet, rich and delicious sandwich. But not a burger…

Similarly, Le Bun's ‘Le Royale with Cheese’ slider wasn't a burger, but was similarly satisfying – a thick chunk of is-the-night-tender short rib, doused in smokey, meaty hickory jus, topped off with fried goats cheese (which wasn't quite cooked enough in our opinion – not really gooey), and crunchy salad. Tres bien.

The next two efforts came from two of the biggest queues – HotBox & Mother Flipper. HotBox's looked beautiful on paper: short rib (a recurring theme), Monterey Jack cheese, chipotle slaw, bbq dripping and chimichurri. Lush. And when cooked it still made for an attractive burger, but sadly, beyond a beautifully cooked course-ground patty, it lacked a little flavour. Pickled chillis added punch (and gave me a dose of hiccups - how the tables turned), but the short-rib wasn't as good as the previous two examples.

And our final savoury burger - Mother Flipper's ‘Smoked BBQ Belly Flipper’ - was our pre-event favourite, a black angus patty topped with cherry BBQ glazed, smoked pork belly, gouda and crispy shallots. But sadly, it didn’t really deliver – our burger seemed a bit too densely packed, and was over-cooked with no pink left. The flavours were there, but the execution was a little off. A shame, because usually I love a Mother-Flipping burger…

After that, I did weigh up one more, having been smitten by the gravy life promised by Dip & Flip on our last trip to the power park. But by 7:30, the queues were off the meat-rack, so we took a call on mains and had a dessert burger instead…

Yep. Dessert burger. The cake dealers at Crumbs & Doilies had got to slinging burger cupcakes. Here is the Elvis, in all its salted caramel, banana mallow, candied bacon, peanut buttery wonder (I avoided the peanut butter. Ewwww).

The side order of cookie fries and sweet sweet sauces were a very clever touch. Expensive for a cupcake, but as a work of craft and imagination, I was very impressed.

All in all, that was a great way to say goodbye to Battersea – burgers, chillibacks, vibes and beats. Burger-y big ups to everyone involved. A fitting send-off to fine times spent down the Power Park.